COMMENTARY: Religion Can’t Be Suppressed This Election Season

c. 2004 Religion News Service (Eugene Cullen Kennedy, a longtime observer of the Roman Catholic Church, is professor emeritus of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago and author of “Cardinal Bernardin’s Stations of the Cross,” published by St. Martin’s Press.) (UNDATED) The more the American Civil Liberties Union try to keep God out of American […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

(Eugene Cullen Kennedy, a longtime observer of the Roman Catholic Church, is professor emeritus of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago and author of “Cardinal Bernardin’s Stations of the Cross,” published by St. Martin’s Press.)

(UNDATED) The more the American Civil Liberties Union try to keep God out of American life and religion out of American politics, the more He and faith assert themselves. Religion is part of our human inheritance and will claim our attention, in aspiration or declaration, despite every effort to quarantine it.


Nothing exemplifies this more than the presidential campaign into which it has been introduced, for good or for ill, by, for example, the Catholic bishops, the media, the candidates and their questioners at their town hall-style debate, and, of course, by those who mention it loudly as they try to exclude it.

Both Sen. John Kerry and President Bush have described the role that their religious convictions play in their lives. We have heard Kerry describe how much Catholicism means to him as a faith that teaches that religion without works is dead.

We have also heard Bush speak of his faith, his prayer life, and its sustaining effects on him in times of stress.

We have also heard the president attacked as if he were a 21st century William Jennings Bryan supported by what are described as “right-wing fanatics” who, according to their liberal critics, want to impose a fascistic style conformity in faith on the Republic.

We have also heard Sen. Kerry described, by numerous bishops and others, as a man who betrays the faith he professes by supporting what he terms a “woman’s right to choose” an abortion. Bishops have even speculated on the possible sin involved in voting for him.

Putting aside these critiques for a moment, is there any test that we can apply to make a judgment for ourselves about Kerry’s Catholicism and Bush’s Methodism without committing ourselves to a position designed by the masters of spin who really don’t care as much about religion as about manipulating to fool at least some of the people some of the time?

We may well turn to the classic distinction about religious faith developed by the late Gordon Allport in his mid-20th century book, “The Individual and His Religion.” The Harvard psychologist was intrigued by the fact that many people who claimed to be religious were also racially prejudiced. How could such a contradiction exist?


He distinguished between “intrinsic religion” and “extrinsic religion,” describing them in this way: Extrinsic religion is that inherited with everything else in a family’s traditions and practices. It is accepted on the authority of others and, if it is not examined, it continues as a cultural keepsake faith that can easily co-exist with racial prejudice.

Intrinsic religion grows out of this extrinsic religion, usually through a crisis during which persons examine their religious beliefs and either cast them aside or internalize them, that is, they no longer take them on the authority of others but on their own authority.

Intrinsic religion comes, in Allport’s words, to be a “master motive” in such persons’ lives. They test their other decisions for moral consistency on the anvil of their beliefs. They need not preach their religion or force it on others but it is a vital source of coordination for them in their life and work.

Extrinsic religion, on the other hand, remains an inheritance that may gain social esteem but does not serve as an integrating force in the life of the individual. People who believe this way use their religion pragmatically, expecting it to give them simple answers. People with intrinsic religion realize that authentic religion, far from offering pat answers, opens them up to deeper questions about the mystery of existence.

Does religion make demands on the believer or does the believer make demands on religion, using it when it is convenient, modifying it when it is not? Is religion a master motive in the life of the believer or is it, at best, a social grace on a plane with those that get membership in the best clubs?

Catholics and other believers do not need anybody else to tell them about the religion of these candidates. Both the senator and the president have explained what believing means to them. Using Allport’s distinctions, readers can make the call better than the ACLU, the bishops, or the choirs of pundits who antiphonate on it every day.


MO/JL END RNS

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